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2019 Lamborghini Urus Track Drive Review | The banshee from Sant'Agata

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — The Lamborghini Urus is a strange beast. It's generally shaped like a modern Lamborghini, a thick wedge with knife-edged angles, but its four-door form brings a practicality that no previous Lamborghini could match. Not even the iconic LM002, a thinly veneered military vehicle more similar to the classic Steyr-Daimler-Puch Gelandewagen than the Urus, which is a crossover and fundamentally meant to appeal to a much broader audience. We flew to California at the height of snowbird season to drive this $200,000 SUV. We wanted to focus on the wonderful weather and Urus' abilities on the track rather than debating whether or not it truly is a product of Sant'Agata Bolognese. Models like this attract new customers to the brand, and the company expects the Urus to double sales. To succeed, it needs to have the sex appeal and performance to back up the Lamborghini name, not necessarily be a direct link to the Huracan or Avendator. There's a Volkswagen Group feel to the whole design, discernable even under the camouflage of hexagonal shapes. That's no surprise, as the Urus rides on the same platform as the Audi Q8, Bentley Bentayga and Porsche Cayenne. The hardpoints can't change, and the sharp lines remind you more than a little of the Q8. And the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8's exhaust note betrays the Urus' German roots, too. The engine – again shared with other VW products – sounds beefy and mean, but doesn't sing quite the same sweet tune you expect from an Italian performance car, especially when your foot is nailed to the floor. The Urus' interior, too, has a distinct Audi aura. The leather is fantastic, especially in saddle brown like our main test vehicle, but the digital instrument cluster is lifted straight from Audi, as are the steering wheel, window and lock switches, infotainment system and more. It's mostly quality stuff, but it feels like pieces from a parts-bin when some of the touch points on a $200,000 SUV are the same as a $35,000 sedan. It's also a problem that the Porsche Cayenne and Bentley Bentayga don't have. The things Porsche and Bentley could change — gauges, switches, lock buttons and more — they did change. Those two feel like more distinct products and less like a different wrapper on the same candy bar. It feels like Lamborghini skimped on some of the details. Look, Audi makes great stuff, but it makes the Urus feel less special. But on the track, you move the Urus around like you're swinging a sledgehammer.

Lambo considering Huracan GT3 for United SportsCar Championship

With all the versions of the Gallardo that Lamborghini made over the course of that model's dozen year lifecycle, we knew the debut of the new Huracán would only be the start. And now we're getting an idea of what Sant'Agata has in store. Before too long, there'll be a new Spyder, and likely a rear-drive version as well. But racing teams are more eagerly anticipating the new competition versions. There's the new Super Trofeo spec racer that Lambo unveiled in Monterey a couple of weeks ago, but now we're receiving word of a new GT3 racer as well.
Based closely on the Super Trofeo, the Huracán GT3 is reportedly being designed to meet the regulations of numerous racing series - including, the latest reports will have us know, the United SportsCar Championship that competes in North America. This according to Sportscar365.com, which spoke to Lamborghini's chief test driver Giorgio Sanna at Virginia International Raceway recently.
Unlike some of its rivals, racing has not traditionally been a core value at Lamborghini, but it has competed here and there. It previously relied on Reiter Engineering to develop racing versions of the Murcielago and Gallardo, but is said to be doing the Huracán GT3 almost entirely in-house, with a modicum of input from Dallara, the racing chassis manufacturer founded by the man widely credited with developing the Miura and Espada in the 1960s.

Felicity Ace sinks with thousands of VWs, Porsches, Lamborghinis

The stricken ship Felicity Ace sank overnight after a week of salvage efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful. The ship, which was carrying up to 4,000 VW Group cars, went to the bottom unexpectedly while a salvage team was attempting to tow it to shore, Bloomberg reports.  "Initial reports from the local salvage team state that the vessel had sunk at around 9AM local time having suffered a list to starboard," Mitsui O.S.K. Lines transportation company (MOL), which owns the Felicity Ace, said in a statement released early Tuesday.    "The last vessel position was around 220nm off the Azores," MOL said. "The salvage crafts will remain around the area to monitor the situation. Further information will be provided as it becomes available." The ship sank after being battered by waves and listing 45 degrees to starboard, the ship’s operator said. “The weather was pretty rough out there,” Pat Adamson, a spokesperson for MOL Ship Management (Singapore), a unit of Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., said by phone. “And then she sank, which was a surprise.” VW, Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini-branded models were aboard the ship, which was headed to Rhode Island from GermanyÂ’s Emden port when the fire broke out on Feb. 16.  Rough seas and ongoing fires fueled by the lithium-ion batteries of EVs onboard delayed the ship's salvage and recovery operations for the better part of a week. While the likelihood of salvaging the smoke and potentially fire- and water-damaged vehicles from Felicity Ace's hold was slim to none, some had held out hope that their special-ordered vehicles might survive the mishap.  The Panama-flagged Felicity Ace was safely evacuated of its 22 crew members by the Portuguese navy after a fire started in its hold more than a week ago. The ship can carry up to 4,000 cars. European carmakers declined to discuss how many vehicles and what models were on board, but it appears to have been transporting approximately 2,500 cars, including roughly 1,100 Porsches and an undetermined number of Volkswagens.  The cars aboard were on order. Porsche customers in the United States were being contacted by their dealers, the company said. “We are already working to replace every car affected by this incident and the first new cars will be built soon,” Angus Fitton, vice president of PR at Porsche Cars North America, Inc., told The Associated Press in an email. The ship sank in water nearly 10,000 feet deep, the Portuguese Navy said.